


Go Into The Water

by Charliegolightly



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Murderface Being Murderface, OctoPickles, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, mythical creatures, some body horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 21:30:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6724264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charliegolightly/pseuds/Charliegolightly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pickles lived a pretty easy-going life under the sea, avoiding his shiftless brother, and futilely hoping for some recognition from his mother. Once again, Seth has screwed things up for him again and Pickles is forced by the vicious Seawitch Lavona to find Seth for her. The only problem? Seth has vanished onto the mainland among the humans.</p><p>Now Pickles has the impossible task of finding his brother among a sea of people. He only hopes the surly truck-driver named Murderface will be more help than his name would imply.</p><p>Contains some art! I will try to be diligent with updates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I'm Pickles

Lavona, rumored to have been a very powerful seawitch, was pissed. Storms over her cove were near-constant as of late, the currents turbulent and treacherous to any who neared it, and now they traveled with her The enraged sorceress waited outside a quaint cave frequented by another well-known merfolk: A fiery-red cecaelia simply called Pickles.

He was one of two males, a rarity for his species, and had been of some interest to Lavona before. If only she had met him before his brother, things would have been so much easier. It was unfortunate they had to meet under these circumstances.

"Pickles!" she bellowed, the water around her shifting and threatening to create a whirlpool. "It has been near a month since that fucking hellspawned brother of yours was seen. So, I'm afraid I have no one else to take my wrath out on but you."

Lightning split the darkness above and cast strange light through the filter of the ocean, as Lavona’s dark hair waved wild around her face. Pickles peered from the safety of his underwater cave, the darkness there hiding him from immediate view while allowing the danger beyond to be seen. He could feel the currents pulling at him in a way that shouldn’t have been possible from inside his home, and he clung to the rocks around him with arms and tentacles alike.

"He stole from me, and made off to the city of the humans," Lavona continued, voice slithering everywhere, and inspiring enough fear in anything nearby that she was guaranteed privacy with her prey. "And someone...has to pay. I'm not without mercy, though, so, I'll give you an opportunity to retrieve him for me. Or, at least, to take back what is mine. Although, I can always take what I want from you and the rest of your family."

 _Fuck_. Leave it to his fucking shit-spawn clutchmate brother to fuck up everyone else’s lives again. Pickles knew pissing off any kind of seawitch was bad news, and had taken advantage of the stereotype about his own species all being sorcerers often enough to know the fear and power they wielded. Perhaps this was karma coming back to bite him the ass...but more than likely just a result of being related to Seth.

Slowly, he made an appearance, drifting out from the mouth of the cave, going for casually annoyed, but reeking of fear. His tentacles curled and tensed around him as if ready to jet back into the safety of the dark home behind, but remained where he was. Lavona could probably draw him back out, and there was still the threat that she would harm his mother. She had never loved him as she did his brother, but Pickles still cared for her. At least enough that he wouldn’t let some seawitch turn her into calamari.

"What did he take?" Pickles asked, wanting only to get to the point and hope that maybe, just _maybe_ there could be some kind of negotiation worked out here. Lavona drifted closer through the water, icy currents radiating from her as her eyes flashed with magic.

"He stole my pearl," she answered, sharp, needle-like teeth now visible. Pickles fought a snicker; something told him **that** pearl had been taken long before Seth got there. Lavona’s eyes became slits, and she continued:  
"A very large one, imbued with my magic. It allowed me to take the shape of a human, and see whatever I wished when asked of it. I believe he said something about 'needing a new life' or 'wanting to see the world', and when I suggested making a deal with me...he dishonored our deal, and stole from me instead."

Pickles found himself vaguely impressed with Seth, and stunned that nobody had attempted stealing it from her before. Honestly, why trade for the fish when you could use the vendor’s hunting grounds? It made him wonder just how old Lavona was that she’d be so reliant on her status as a witch and the honor of ‘deals’ that she hadn’t anticipated an eel like Seth stealing from her.

"So, I shall simply transform you instead to go fetch him. Or I shall make due with more...barbaric rituals to do so myself. This would require your seed. And your heart."

Hold up. What? Pickles shrunk back from her at that, tentacles twitching through the water in a quick movement to put more distance between them. The fuck was with these magic bitches always needing blood and semen in everything? He wasn’t an adolescent anymore fucking around with dolphin pods; he didn’t need this shit.

"Hey now," Pickles warned, holding up a hand as if that could ward her off. “You can just back right the fuck off with _that_ talk. I’m not interested in that kinda party. Just tell me what the fuck you need me to do, and I’ll get it the fuck done. And then you can do whatever, alright? Just leave me and my junk outta it, alright?”

Looking imperiously at the cecaelia, Lavona waved her hand in a slow circle. A strong current swirled around Pickles, dragging him closer as the sky above dwindled the filtered light to nearly nothing. He struggled, tentacles lashing out to try and grab at anything for support, but ceased when he realized how futile his actions were. Her eyes flashed again and continued a soft glow of magic. The only two sources of lights now.

"You must take human form, and seek him out. Bring him back here, or bring back my pearl to me by the time of the next moon cycle. Do this, and all will be well for you and the rest of your kin where I am concerned."

“Into a...into a human?” Pickles stammered, his eyes wide as he tried to comprehend the task presented to him. “What? I...I ain’t seen a human in nearly a fuckin’ decade, dude! How the fuck am I supposed to figure that shit out or even fuckin’ find Seth!?”

The darkness and currents around him made his tentacles and hair swirl in the water, growing faster and more agitated as he argued with her. Lavona’s hands came up, and grabbed roughly at his face, drawing little scratches against his freckled skin. Pickles hissed and went still, not wanting to risk changing her mind over not using him for some fucked up potion instead. A cruel, amused smile slid over her fine, pale features, and her needle-sharp teeth were put on display.

"Figure it out," came her sweetly whispered words, and bit down hard on her full lower lip.

Pickles watched in fascinated horror as a stream of dark ichor-like blood rose up between them like a signal. Still, she held his face close to her own, and he had little choice in the matter when she pressed in to do the same damage to him. Lavona dragged Pickles into a rough, harsh kiss, and their blood smeared together. The now torrential currents lifted them up, lightning slicing through the sky, and Lavona broke the kiss with a pleased hum.

"Try not to breathe in the water, little fool."

“Huh?”

Pickles blinked in a daze, and found himself pushed away from her with more force than the action should have warranted. Currents and magic dragged him like the funnel of a hurricane. Fire and agony shocked his nerves as his limbs began to reshape, and his lungs burned with pressure. He choked and gasped, clawing desperately at the swirling mess of water and jetsam that engulfed him.

She wanted to kill him anyways. Even after agreeing to help her out with his stupid fucking brother, Lavona chose to kill him. That’s the only the only sense Pickles could make out of anything as he watched his tentacles rip away into the churning gore of blood and foam. It felt like his bones were being pulled right out of his guts, which was sure to be a pretty brutal and exciting way to go. That was his only consolation before the sweet black relief of unconsciousness took him under.

 

* * *

  

Hours later, he could feel the heat of the sun...and the insistent prodding of a beak against his backside. Pickles stirred, bringing his arm down with a sudden vengeance against whatever shithead seagull was fucking with his hangover. One terrified flap of feathers and some angry shrieking later, and Pickles’s attacker fled the scene.

“Fuckin’ birds,” he groused, and pushed himself up from the sand. God, that must have been some fucking bender he’d gone on the night before if he washed up on a beach. Had he been partying with that asshole dolphin again; the one that claimed to be cousins with some supposedly famous dickhead called “Flipper”? Pickles was disappointed in himself.

“Should fuckin’ know better than this by now,” he moaned, rolling over and scrubbing the sand away from his face. The feeling of the tide washing in and out over him like the world’s most useless blanket provided some comfort though. It gave him an idea of the time (early morning), and let him know he hadn’t drunkenly dragged himself too far up the shore.

He wiggled his tentacles in the water, only to discover that...he had a great deal fewer of them than he remembered. Pickles shot up into a sitting position, puking up seawater and bile for his efforts when that made him motion sick. Seeing the bizarre, fleshy limbs, and the small malformed tentacle dangling between them, made him heave again.

“Fuck, oh fuck,” he whimpered, shaking as he tried to curl in on himself, and felt his new legs respond by folding at a strange and stiff joint. It all felt so _wrong_ , and alien. Worse than that time he got high on puffer fish toxin as a kid, and he’d wound up trying to fuck a piece of coral then.

Everything ached. Every muscle (new and old), and especially his head, throbbed. He licked over his chapped lips, and winced from the sting of a wound reopening on the bottom one. It came back to him with crippling clarity: Lavona, Seth, the deal, becoming **human.**

“I’m gonna fuckin’ kill him,” Pickles vowed, voice rasping from thirst and the burn of bile, and turned his thoughts to violence against his brother. He dragged himself toward the ocean, and dipped his hands into the foam and water lapping against the sand. After a bit more awkward rolling and dragging, he submerged fully.

The water felt colder than it normally did, like a spurned lover ignoring his advances, and he popped his head back above the surface to gasp for breath. _Try not to breathe in the water, little fool._

Lavona’s advice came back to him like a harsh slap, and he crawled back to the shore. It pained him so much, and with a deep ache in his chest, he found salty tears dripping down his face to rejoin the ocean. He fucking leaked now?! Slapping at his face suddenly, Pickles shook himself, and glared out over the ocean.

“Fuck it. I’m _Pickles_ ,” he reminded himself, and scooped up a handful of water, forcing himself to drink. It stung his throat and ached in his gut, but he drank twice more before scrubbing at his face. He cleaned away whatever bile still clung to his goatee, and then crawled over to an outcropping of rocks. “I’m not gonna let this fuckin’ get to me. I’m gonna find that stupid shithead, and I’m gonna kick his fuckin’ ass. And then I’m comin’ back, and i’m gonna beat the _shit_ out of Lavona. Nobody fucks with me!”

Spurred on, Pickles managed to drag himself up along the biggest rock near him, and rested his weight on his new legs. For the better part of an hour, he forced himself to learn walking from the limited knowledge he had of humans. Every denizen of the ocean had a time in their life where they needed to observe the only species capable of eradicating them. Of course, now, Pickles wish he hadn’t skipped out on those lessons quite so much.

He fell down several times, and earned some new scrapes and bruises as punishment for every misstep, but soon enough he had managed to along further down the beach. Luckily there wasn't anyone to avoid because of the hour. It helped also that the particular area of the beach he washed up was usually overpopulated with sea lions. However, the freak storm Lavona’s magic caused had cleared them out as well, and only now were some returning for sunbathing.

Pickles had been powered mostly by spite, but now as the beach grew less rocky and more open, he felt exposed and vulnerable. He hugged himself as the wind that rarely ever affected him in life before whipped at his bare body. His dreads, limp and heavy with salt water, dripped chilly lines of water over him, and the wind cut across his skin in frigid gusts. On the other side, drawing closer as the beach stretched out into human civilization, was a strange sort of pathway filled with speeding metal objects.

They weren’t ships or those strange things that held one or two humans as they sped and leapt over crests of waves, but were still pretty similar. A few cars honked at the naked red-head, and Pickles scowled. Whatever they were, they still made a lot of noise and tainted the oxygen around them. He shied away from the road, but knew he needed to stay near it if he wanted to find more humans. If he wanted to find his brother.


	2. Is That A Nickname?

 

William Murderface had only been driving truck for close to a year now, and fucking despised it. It ranked only slightly above his time as a garbage man, and that's only because he didn't have to deal with any fucking co-workers. The storm had forced him to pull-over and bunk down around 1 in the morning, and now he was getting behind schedule. Again.

Still, the beach area was quiet, and there was a weigh-station ahead, so he could check in there and get cleaned up or raid the vending machines for some snack cakes. He took down the windshield sunshade, and stepped outside to grab his cones, which he always put up to keep cars the fuck away from his truck.

Murderface was in the middle of popping his back and dumping out the old coffee from the night before when he saw him. Some buck-ass naked ginger dude just...strolling down along the beach by the sidewalk, looking more than a bit confused, and maybe drunk. The dude seemed wobbly and cold.

"What the fuck...?" Murderface muttered, and threw his empty thermos back into the cab of his truck, slamming the door closed extra hard afterward, grabbing his jacket and driving gun, sticking the latter in the back of his pants. "Hey! The fuck's the matter with you?"

Pickles froze when he heard a man yelling, and he stared at the _massive_ construct beside the broad, stout human. It reeked of that strange, chemical and oil smell that boats left in their wake, and the human beside it had a cagey, territorial look about him. He must be the owner of the landship, Pickles assumed, and thus the best bet he had for travelling, as well as providing a bit of shelter.

Now he just hoped that this human wouldn’t just outright kill him and eat him. Did humans do that? He couldn’t remember and had never really paid that much attention to any of his lessons about them as a youth. Well, he was kind of shit for choices right now.  
  
"Hey, could you maybe help me out?" Pickles called out, drawing a bit closer and trying not to chatter his teeth when he spoke. Thank fuck Lavona’s spell had the foresight to make him capable to communicate. “I’m...uh…don’t know where I am?”

 _Shit. This guy must have had a real rough night_ , Murderface thought. Rougher than he had at least, and he slept on a lumpy cot in the back of a truck cab. The trucker came closer to the naked dude, forcing himself to keep his eyes up, and remained wary. It was unlikely the guy had a weapon, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t gonna go nuts still. Pun unintended.

"You okay? Like, do you need a hospital or...whatever?" Murderface asked with a heavy lateral lisp, making “hospital” come out more like “ho _schpit_ al.” He quickly checked that the pockets of his jacket didn't have anything more than cigarettes and old receipts before offering it over to the other man. "Uh, you look kinda cold."

“Yeah, thanks,” the naked man replied staring at the jacket now clutched in his his hand for a few seconds, before slowly sticking one arm into a sleeve, but struggled to get the other one on. Was he doing this right? He’d only seen the other man taking it off. The human laughed, a grating, nasal sound, and took up the other half of the jacket to help get the remaining sleeve on him.

“Christ, dude. How fuckin’ drunk are you?” Murderface felt a bit more comfortable now that the other man was partially clothed, and the situation became more hilarious than awkward and creepy. The nudist shrugged at that, and seemed grateful that Murderface’s jacket was big and long enough to cover up his bits and bobs too. “Eh, you can keep the jacket, by the way.”

“Oh. Thanks?” Pickles wasn’t thrilled about his first piece of clothing, but it shielded most of the wind’s assault. It was still a kindness, and he hadn’t been threatened yet. It was relieving, even, that Pickles simply looked drunk instead of crazy or inhuman. “Could, uh...you help me more? It’s kinda hard um...to get around.”

“Oh, uh, shit,” Murderface looked back at his truck, and then over toward the traffic that moved past them on the other side of his truck. Policy said he wasn’t supposed to have passengers, but he didn’t have a string of shitty jobs because he _followed_ the rules. He’d been in situations about as bad as this guy before, and certainly could have used a bit of help. Sighing, he got the passenger door open, and jerked his head at the cab.

“Sure, man, just don’t make me fuckin’ regret this, okay? Like keep your dick away from me and don’t try to rip out my jugular or nothin’, okay?”

Pickles wasn’t really sure what the human meant by all of that _specifically,_ but he got the jist of it. No attacking each other; a fair rule. He struggled to get his badly shaking legs up onto the step, and gripped at the interior of the door for a handhold. A hand suddenly rested at the center of his back, steadying Pickles until he managed to flop his bare ass onto seat (which was blessedly soft and made of some kind of cloth and cushion).

Having a drunk stranger’s bare ~~pert~~  ass wave in his face wasn’t how Murderface planned on starting his day--especially some _dude’s_ ass. Still, he didn’t want the guy to flop right back out of the truck and crack his like an egg on the pavement. He turned his head away from the sight, and only glanced back to make sure he could slam the door shut safely. The thought of some dude’s balls and taint sitting on the seat beside him made him wish he’d thrown down a towel or blanket down first.

“Hey,” Murderface started as he climbed up onto his side of the cab, jerking his head toward back of the cab where a small cabin space held a cot, some extra clothes, blankets, and a pillow. “Grab one of those blankets from the floor and sit on that, okay? I don’t need your naked wet ass all over the seat.”  
  
“Uhhhh,” Pickles stared at the mess behind him, everything looking foreign and bizarre to him, and reached over to pluck up one of the long bits of fabric draped over the bed and onto the wrapper-strewn floor. There was the head of something like an oar handle sticking out from under the cot, and it gleamed with wood and strange metal threads, but Pickles ignored it for now. He tucked the blanket under himself in a bit of an awkward shuffle that involved lifting his hips up to do so. “How’s this?”   
  
“Whoa! Dude,” Murderface glanced over only to whip his face in the opposite direction, a hand held up to block the view further. “Fuckin’, your dick is floppin’ around--just _sit down_! This isn’t a goddamn strip club.”

“What?” Pickles glared over at him, sitting down again and tugging the jacket down until the weird, limp tentacle hanging uselessly between his legs was covered. He surmised that _this_ was the ‘dick’ the human kept talking about. “...Better?”

“Yeah, jesus, dude,” Murderface approved with another glance, and got the truck started up. “I know you’re totally fucked up, but you gotta have a little sense, y’know?”  
  
“Sorry,” Pickles rolled his eyes, clearly annoyed but the human seemed oblivious to the tone. That, or he didn’t give a fuck. “So...um. I’m Pickles.”

“Pickles? Like a nickname?”  
  
“...Sure.”

“Huh,” Murderface, changed gears, glanced in the side mirror, and pulled out into traffic regardless if said traffic was ready for it. A few squealing tires and blaring horns made him smirk, and he glanced back at his clock again. It looked like he’d have to pass up the closer weigh-station for the next one. “I’m William Murderface; just call me Murderface.”

“Is _that_ a nickname?” Pickles asked, feeling a little more wary now.

“Nope.”

He yanked the cord above and blasted the truck’s horn, and laughed when Pickles jumped. At this rate, Pickles would be shocked if he made it through the day, let alone a month.


	3. Gay and Gross

Pickles stared ahead through the front glass covered in a film with the remains of insects and dust. There were water spots dried everywhere as well, creating a strange mosaic, and he wondered how it was the man beside him managed to see through it at all. Murderface, it seemed, looked more interested in shooting furtive glances over at Pickles whenever he thought his passenger couldn’t see, as if suspicious that Pickles would do something or change magically before his eyes.

 _Already had enough transformations for one life, thanks,_ Pickles thought as another muscle twing hit him. _So you're shit out of luck there, buddy._

"Uh, so you don't got anything against rock music, yeah? Or like, metal? It's mostly metal," Murderface asked, already taking up a cassette and flipping it around to the A Side, and popped it into the truck’s player. He had the volume up pretty loud, which (again) went against regulation, but never much liked listening to all the other chatter on the feed. That novelty wore off fast after the first week or so when the other truckers kept acting like they couldn’t understand his lisp.

Pickles shrugged, not really sure what kind of music rocks or metal could make, but he'd enjoyed overhearing the music that humans had made from the distant shores and from their boats. It was the only thing that had made going to any of his lessons on humans even worthwhile. However, it was a rarity to catch them blasting music loud enough for his class to hear well, but when the wind was right, Pickles could catch some of the notes over the waves without having to see any weirdo humans.

"Good, because I was gonna play it anyway," Murderface smirked, and pressed play. "Just means you won't hate the trip any more than you do."

"I don't hate it," Pickles argued, brows furrowed at the driver, making the strange fish hook pierced through his left eyebrow glint. "You coulda just killed and eaten me or somethin', but you're helpin' me out. I appreciate that, dood."

"Woah, hey," Murderface pointed a thick, calloused finger at Pickles, glancing away from the road to give him a scowl. "Let's get one fuckin' thing straight here. I don't eat out guys, got it? I don't even go down on the ladies; that's gay and gross."

"Uh....sure, okay," Pickles arched his brow again, and looked out the passenger window, not wanting to show just how confused he was by that 'clarification'. If there was one thing he learned through his youthful days of popularity, it was how to act like he knew exactly what was going on to avoid looking like an idiot. Everything went smoother when people thought you were in the loop. "Didn't uh...you know, mean to say you did. Just glad you didn't do that to me."

"Yeah, okay," Murderface relented, nodding his head. "Lotta truckers got that kinda perverted serial killer stereotype against them. And I know I look about as appealing as one of those...pumice rocks old bitches use on their bunions. I get it."

A beat of silence.

"So. You're welcome, is what I mean."

"Cool. Thanks."

More silence, and the music played on, the bass shaking the cab a bit. Pickles tapped his hands to the beat against his thighs and the knobby joints of his legs. This stuff was pretty great, a bit different and way heavier than the music he usually heard from the beach and boats. He enjoyed the fact that not once had he heard anything in this song about some drunken asshole whining about his tractor or eating 'cheeseburger paradise'. Whatever the fuck that meant.

 _Maybe I can find out now, since I'm here and all,_ Pickles thought, and found his feet (that was the term, right?) tapping and jerking to the beat as well. It was as though they were possessed by the notes and rhythm, and it helped sort out a lot of the anxiety and stress he'd been feeling since waking up that morning. 

"You play?" Murderface interrupted the redhead's reverie, and thought about his Gibson Thunderbird bass resting under his cot in the back. It'd been about a month since he'd had anyone to actually chill out with and have a jam session. Probably since the last time he'd seen Magnus and help cut the very demo tape he was listening to now.

"Play what?" Pickles asked, avoiding looking over at the driver, and hoped he seemed aloof enough to maybe cut down on some of the small talk. It was just how he dealt with people lately in life, but he caught the crestfallen and annoyed look Murderface gave in immediate response. Maybe he'd have to cut back on that kind of antisocial attitude, especially if he wanted to get anywhere in his search for Seth. "Sorry, I uh...I'm kinda out of it still."

Murderface bought that, and attempted continuing the conversation. There weren't a lot of things he genuinely enjoyed in life, which was understandable. He had a face like a pitbull who'd lost too many dogfights, and drove around in a smelly-ass truck all day every day, hauling fucking consumer goods for corporate America. The rock gods of old would probably spit on him. 

"I mean like, instruments. Drums, guitar, anything like that," he clarified. "You got a pretty good rhythm for that shit. Even stoned." 

"Really?" Pickles looked surprised, flattered even, and thought about how he sang  with some of his old friends back in his more reckless partying days. "Well, uh, no I don't really play anything like that. I used to sing though." 

"No shit? That's pretty cool," Murderface relaxed further, cutting off some more assholes in traffic, and rolling his eyes when he heard their whining honks. "I can't sing for shit. I sound like someone running a cheese grater over two cats fucking."

Pickles gave a bark of laughter, relieved to see that Murderface didn't looked pissed off about it. 

"You're not supposed to laugh, asshole," Murderface said, with no real heat. "You're supposed to be like, 'Oh! I'm sure you're not that bad!'"

"Well, your voice is kinda annoying," Pickles countered, snickering. 

"Oh, go fuck yourself!" Murderface fought back a grin though. "You can fuckin' walk if you're gonna be insulting." 

"No I can't," Pickles pointed out, feeling a little giddy from the laughing fit. He probably should've eaten a seagull or something and not just seawater. Could humans drink seawater? It was starting to feel like they couldn't, if his stomach and head's fuzzy, floating feeling was anything to go by. "I only just got the hang of it today."

"The hang of what?" Murderface asked, his hand smacking lightly at the steering wheel as Magnus's newest song _I Am The Hammer_ came on the tape. "Walking?"

"Yeah," Pickles grinned, bobbing his head to the beat of the song, and then stopping that when it made things go spinny. At least Murderface understood what he meant.

"Jesus, dude, how fucked are you?"

"I am _so_ fucked, man, you got no idea," Pickles laughed, slapping at his leg. "Like, shit man, I don't even know where to begin."


	4. A Jackass With A Purpose

_ Great, _ Murderface looked out at the road again, counting the exits before the next weigh station. He had ten more to go, which meant about ten miles more of listening to this naked guy ramble something crazy or some pseudo-intellectual garbage. It'd be too much effort to just reach over and kick him out on the side of the highway. 

"First, like, my fuckin' brother, y'know?" Pickles vented, waving his hand around a bit, smacking it into the passenger window on accident. "Ouch. Well, he like, pissed the WRONG bitch off, y'know? So now I gotta drag my fuckin' pale ass all around this godforsaken rock and look for him. Like, if he fuckin' stole from you, then like YOU go get him, yeah? Or like get the fuck over it. You don't go and make some guy--even if he  _ is  _ his brother--to like go and get him for you! Especially cos I don't got nothin' to do with any of this shit, you know? It's just  _ genes _ , man!"

"...What the fuck are you talkin' about?" Murderface asked, glaring over at Pickles. The dude looked a bit green, and out of it, so he turned on his AC and directed one of the fans at the guy's face. Pickles twitched, and stared at it like Murderface had done a magic trick.

"Dood," Pickles poked at it, and grinned crookedly. "How the fuck did you like...bring the wind in here?"

"That's the air conditioner, Pickles. It's just like... a fan and a motor making it turn and shit," Murderface pointed out slowly and carefully, finding more and more evidence his passenger was some kinda hippie. "Haven't you ever been in a fuckin' car at least?"

"Nope," Pickles popped the "p", and fiddled with the knobs, turning the volume up a bit more to his surprise. It was a satisfying change though, so he left it. 

"Were you like, abandoned by your commune or some shit then?"

"What's a commune? I fuckin' live alone, dood," Pickles provided, and waved his hand impatiently at Murderface's confused face. "You're not getting it, man. I'm not like...just some jackass. I'm a jackass with a purpose, you know?"

"...Is that purpose to kill the president or carry out god's orders or some shit?" Christ, Murderface really hoped he hadn't just helped out the next Son of Sam. He really would get fired then: for running Pickles over with his truck.

"Huh? No, fuck that shit, man," Pickles frowned at Murderface. "The fuck's a president?"

"A douchebag puppet used to push legislation and turn the rest of this country into a buncha thought slaves."

"...Yeah, okay, that explained a lot."

"He's the dude who helps 'run' the country," Murderface further explained, giving half the air-quotes needed via lifting one hand off the wheel. "How the fuck do you not know that? Do your folks not have TV or something? Were you home-schooled?"

"Nah, I did skip pretty much all the time though. I don't know jack shit about any of the stuff around here," Pickles shrugged. "I spent most of my time getting high and pissin' people off."

"I can respect that," Murderface nodded in appreciation, turning the music down a bit so he can better hear Pickles slurred responses. The conversation was insane, but considerably more entertaining than having only his own thoughts and the gossip from the radio chatter. "So, what  _ do  _ you know?"

"Uhhh," Pickles tipped his head back, exposing the long, pale column of his throat speckled with freckles. Murderface swallowed and focused back on counting the exits. He needed to get laid. Bad.

"Oh! I know that you guys put limes in coconuts. Whatever the fuck a lime is, I don't know, but I think it's weird you'd need to put anything in a coconut. They're good enough on their own, if you're a middle-aged mom."

Murderface snorted and shook his head, pulling back over to the right lane, cutting more cars off again. 

"Dude, that's some shitty reggae song. No one actually does that shit," Murderface looked over at his passenger again, who still had his eyes closed. "How, uh...do you not know what a lime is? Did you guys not have fruits and veggies wherever you're from?"

"Nah, just fish and seaweed and whatever shit your people throw in the ocean."

"Pfft, what, you like live in a boat or something? Is this some kinda strange fish-worshipping cult or whatever?" 

"Nah, we're pretty secular. Most folk think those fish-god people are kinda fuckin' weird."

Murderface shook his head, wondering if this guy was punking him. This was a pretty consistent backstory he had going, and seemed to be pointing to only one 'logical' conclusion. 

"What...are you some kinda mermaid-guy or something?"

Pickles sat up straight again, forcing his eyes to focus back on the driver again, and smiled. 

"Cecaelian, actually. You know, tentacle bottom, instead of fishtail." This was great! Murderface sounded familiar with his people, maybe he'd know where he could start looking for Seth. "Have you run into another guy like me? Brown hair, shitty mustache, mumbles like a motherfucker? Probably stole some shit from you...?"

"....Dude, I ain't run into  _ anyone  _ like you before," Murderface shook his head, looking almost upset and resigned. He'd been kinda hoping this dude wasn't crazy, but what did he expect from a guy named 'Pickles'?

At least he didn't seem like a serial killer anymore. 

"Oh," Pickles slumped back against the seat again, the wind out of his sails. "Fuck. I don't know how the fuck I'm gonna find that douchebag now."

"Your...brother, right?"

"Seth, yeah," Pickles sighed and scrubbed at his face. "Fuck me. It's gonna be impossible tryin' to do this in a month."

"Why a month?" Murderface pulled over to the exit for the weigh station, heading up the side ramp toward the rest area that was meant for semis only. 

"That's all the time this bitch Lavona gave me. Said she's gonna like, fuck up my mom and shit, and who knows what else, if I don't get her jewelry or whatever back to her. And to do that, I gotta find my shithead brother." 

Whether any of what Pickles told him was true or not, the dude looked pretty fucked up about it. Downright dejected (which would be a pretty good name for a song title, Murderface noted), and he sighed as he pulled up to settle his trailer over the weighing platform. He turned the truck off, and clipped his keys to one of the belt loops on his shorts. 

“That sucks, man,” Murderface said with an indifferent shrug, not really sure what  _ else _ he could even add to that. Clearly there was some grain of truth to all of this, insomuch as Pickles believed, and he probably really was looking for his brother. Some jackass probably just left his mentally ill brother stranded on a beach all night, and god knows what happened to him to make Pickles not have any fucking clothes or sense about the world around him the next day. 

Honestly, Pickles was probably better off without this “Seth” guy in his life. It all sounded vaguely cultish, and definitely fucked up.    
  
“Stay in the cab, yeah? I just gotta do my checklist and grab some snacks.”

“Snacks?” Pickles perked up, watching Murderface gather up a battered clipboard with a stack of papers on it. The papers had light brown rings stained on them, and messy marks in several printed boxes on it, and when he focused on it, Pickles realized he could read and understand the words.  _ Bodom and Sons Trucking Co. _

“Yeah, I can uh...grab us both something, maybe,” Murderface replied absently, grabbing up a pack of cigarettes along with a zippo emblazoned with the confederate flag. “Go grab some fuckin’ clothes from the back though, alright? I should have like...a black mesh bag and a white one. Grab some shorts and shirt from the white one, alright. That’s the clean bag. I think.”

Not like he really cared much which bag he used one way or the other. Clothes weren’t dirty until they  _ looked _ dirty in the Murderface household. 

Pickles shrugged, and got up, flashing his bare ass and dick at Murderface again as he moved to get in the back of the cab again. He smirked when he caught the trucker raising up his hand to block the sight, and laughed outright when Murderface slammed the door in response. Humans, man; what a fuckin’ trip.    
  
Still, Pickles recognized that what Murderface did for him today probably went a bit above and beyond the norm for folks, and he tried to think of some way to repay the guy. Even if the clothes being lent to him were too big and some acrid, burning smell clung to the fibers of them, they still kept Pickles covered and warm.


	5. Gonna Be Karen Allen

Murderface lazily wrote down numbers on his checklist, scribbling his signature and fudging the timestamp on the form in a futile effort to make his numbers look better. Whatever, he probably wouldn’t be doing any of this shit by the year’s end; on to some other bullshit job that nobody wanted. He opened his door to the truck long enough to throw the clipboard inside, and then slammed the door shut again. 

A quick pat-down on himself reassured that, yes, he did have his gun on him, and that Pickles wouldn’t be able to get very far if he did try to steal from him now. Murderface was a  _ very _ good shot, and he loved that bass more than he feared prison time. Besides, this was Florida, more than likely no one would blame him for it.

Drawing out the pack of smokes, he shook out one of the Lucky Strikes, and tucked it into the corner of his mouth. He didn’t light up yet, though, since all those new laws frowned on hard-working assholes like himself having a goddamn smoke inside for even a second, and the vending machines were inside the rest stop. Murderface, dug out his wallet by tugging on the chain attached to it and his belt loop, a novelty he’d gotten in high school and hung on too. After all, why buy a new wallet if the old one still worked just fine?

There were slim pickings to choose from, and he wound up sticking a couple dollars in for two bottles of Mountain Dew from the soda machine. The snack machine he kicked and shook like an angry teenager until he could jam his arm up through the broken slot and get a handful of potato chip bags, a pack of gum, and some mixed nuts. That would be good enough for the two of them until lunch.

Christ, he was already making meal plans, as if Pickles would be sticking around for longer than it took to give him some goodwill snacks. He wasn’t some kind of pet, and it wouldn’t be smart to travel around with a crazy guy, no matter how much he livened things up with all his ‘I’m not human’ talk. It had started to feel a bit like living out the movie  _ Starman _ . Only he wasn’t gonna be Karen Allen, no way, no how. Thank you very much. The nights weren’t  _ that _ lonely.

But they were pretty lonely all the same.

Murderface rubbed at his eyes, stashing the snacks in the pockets of his vest and shorts, and sneered at some roadtripping family. He hated when people gawked at him, especially kids and uppity housewives that acted like they’d never shoplifted a damn thing in their life. Bitches, all of them. To make a point, he lit up while still inside, took a long draw on his cigarette, and blew smoke in their direction before heading outside.

_ Douchebags _ . 

“Hey, I hope you’re not a bitch about smoking,” Murderface called up to the cab as he opened the door, using the handle as leverage to pull himself up onto the driver’s seat. “Because if you are, you better start walkin’ now. I ain’t in the mood for a cancer speech.”

“What’s cancer?” 

Pickles sat there in borrowed clothing, his shirt on backwards, and fiddled with the tuning on Murderface’s bass. His  _ baby _ . The crazy fuck just looked up at Murderface, and gave that crooked, confident smile he’d been flashing now and then like a rare beam of sunlight in March, acting like he had no idea just how fucking stupid he’d been to touch another man’s instrument.

Musical instrument, that is.

“Oh, sweet! Is that the food?” Pickles pointed at the cigarette dangling out of Murderface’s gaping mouth, and tilted his head at the dumbstruck expression the other man wore. That smell that soaked the clothing Pickles returned stronger with Murderface, and so now he had a source. This thing must be the human’s favorite snack. “Uh….you gonna share?”

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Murderface snapped, and his hand snatched out to take the bass back. Hiis eyes widened, livid, when Pickles held onto the guitar. It was too brief to be called a tug-o-war, but long enough that Murderface was a hair’s breadth from driving his fist into that dopey, shocked face in front of him. “Get the  _ fuck _ out of my truck.”

“But--what!?” Pickles floundered, and then glared hotly back at the human. “Hey, fuck you! I wasn’t doin’ nothin’! I was just tryin--”

“You don’t touch another dude’s bass!” Murderface bellowed over him, his cigarette falling completely from his mouth to land on the cloth seat, its blue-grey smoke rising up in the air between them. “I gave you a fuckin’ ride, and you go around gettin’ your crazy all over my shit? No way, get the fuck out, man.”

“ **FINE**! Go fuck yourself, you gap-toothed hagfish,” Pickles snarled, and struggled to get the door open. Murderface watched him fight with the handle for a few minutes before unlocking both doors on his side panel controls, and laughed cruelly when the door swung out faster than Pickles expected. 

The other had gone down in a painful heap on the asphalt, and when he got up again, there was a visible scrape along his chin. Both palms were worse off though, embedded with little bits of gravel and dirt and bleeding in a way that Murderface knew stung like a bitch. His childhood experiences with the ground were never gentle. 

Pickles raised both middle-fingers, which Murderface guessed  _ was _ a part of this ‘mermaid culture’ the lunatic came from, and then slammed the door shut. He watched as the other man stumbled away from the truck, and honked the horn when he made out the top of the balding dreads cross in front of the hood. The muffled sound of Pickles cursing him out could be heard clearly throughout the parking lot, and Murderface forced himself to stop watching and examine the damage done to his bass.

There was none.

In fact, his Thunderbird sounded more in-tune than it had been in a long time; at least since the last time he let Magnus fuck around with it. There wasn’t even any dust on it, and a little look around showed that one of his old shirts had been used to get most of the grime and dustbunnies off of it. The whole back of the cab had looked a bit more organized, even. Like an attempt had been made to clean it. 

“Whatever,” Murderface muttered under his breath, setting his bass back across the top of his cot, and started to unload the goodies and drinks from his pocket. It wasn’t like he could just ride forever with some delusional asshole that thought mermaids and sess-aliens existed. Whatever the fuck a sess-alien was. 

Out of morbid curiosity, Murderface scanned the parking lot of the rest area for Pickles, and froze when he saw some older guy in thick glasses talking to him. Pickles waved his hands around a bit when he spoke, and the other guy nodded, before moving around to the other side of the car, opening the passenger door for Pickles. It felt so...off, and alarm bells started pinging in Murderface’s mind right away. They became blaring as he watched Pickles get  _ in _ the car with this guy.

“Fuckin’...Goddamnit,” he breathed out, struggling to get all the snacks and shit out of his lap, and cursing louder when he set his hand on the charred seat and burning cigarette he’d forgotten about beside him. Murderface waved his injured hand about for a moment, distracted by the pain, and angrily threw the butt out his window. The vehicle, some old Lincoln Town Car, drove past as he did, and Murderface hurried in starting his engine. It was too late to get out and warn Pickles in person, and so he’d have to just follow this creepy fucker and his unsuspecting hitchhiker.

In the wake of his truck, a trail of fire spread from his tossed cigarette, licked up a thin trail of oil toward the rest stop, and the rustic wood exterior went up like tinder.


	6. A Unique Way of Putting It

"Sorry, I didn't get your name yet," the driver said to Pickles, turning his head away from the road for a second to look over his passenger, and the light from the morning sun glared harshly over the lenses of his glasses. Pickles couldn't see his eyes, and that made him feel uncomfortable for a lingering moment.

"Uh, it's Pickles," he answered, fidgeting with the too-big shorts he'd taken from Murderface, and adjusted the crotch of them. He's pretty sure the remaining tentacle this human form had was his dick--given that's what Murderface had accused him of waving around. Sure, it wasn't really _polite_ to wave your reproductive organs about in friendly company, but most people back in the sea didn't make such a big deal out of it. And right now, it felt so fucking uncomfortable to have it rubbing freely against the denim material of these human cloths.

"Ah, that's certainly unique," the man beside him replied, thin eyebrows raising briefly before he returned his gaze to the road again, looking one way and then another before pulling out of the rest stop.

The Lincoln merged with the rest of traffic comfortable, leaving the strange semi that had been trying to ride their ass out of there behind to wait. There was quite the line of cars putting distance between his car and the big truck, something that seemed to relax Pickles' new acquaintance. Pickles just wanted to know why the fuck Murderface's truck was following them like that. _Prick_.

"Are you from around here, Pickles?" the man asked suddenly, turning the music on the radio down a bit, showing his interest in the small talk he started, and Pickles felt his heart sink a bit. God, this was exactly why he hated meeting new people sometimes, especially when he had to rely on them. He already learned that saying or doing the wrong thing, or being his less than sociable self could get him stranded on the side of the road again, so he had to play along.

"Well...Kinda. I travel a lot, uh, live out on the ocean mostly," he answered vaguely, shrugging his shoulders. It was true, after all, and maybe it was best to not be so forthright about his true origins.

He fiddled with one of his dreads, staring out the window, and focused his gaze on the little side mirror attached to the door. It showed the hulking shadow of the semi truck behind them still, but a good distance away now. What the fuck was up with him? Were they both just heading the same way or was Murderface following them?

"Well that sounds interesting," the man replied, and Pickles realized that he hadn't learned this human's name. Glancing over him, he took in the thin (even thinner than his own) blonde hair, the portly belly, the way the pale yellow shirt he wore hugged his body all the way up his neck and down to his wrists. Something about him seemed strange over all, not to mention the careful way he spoke, his diction clear and vaguely accented.

"Though from the sounds of your accent, I would have thought you were maybe Canadian? Or, hum, from Wisconsin?"

"Uh, well, my family's from further north, yeah. But we've lived south for awhile now. Can't stand the cold."

"Ah, I know how you feel," the man replied, his hand tightening over the strange stick jutting up from between the seats. It was like a smaller version of the one he'd seen in Murderface's truck, and the man only had to shift it once since they left the rest stop. Still, his grip on the top of it was very tight, the whites of his knuckles showing obviously. Pickles wondered if the man was angry or in pain.

"I'm originally from Sweden, myself."

"Huh?"

"Sweden?" The man repeated, smiling a little and looking almost nervous. "It's near Norway, Finland, and--yech--Denmark," he chuckled a bit when he added that, as if laughing a private joke.

"Oh," Pickles shrugged, offering a brief smile, and looking back out the window, begging silently for this conversation to just die. "That's cool."

"It is. The winters are very harsh there," the man replied, nodding. "But, we do have all sorts of ways to keep...warm there."

"Uh-huh," Pickles replied rotely, watching as cars honked and slammed on brakes or swerved as Murderface's semi gained on them on the highway. He drove the thing like a much smaller, faster deathmachine, and Pickles felt himself wanting to tell the driver beside him to go faster. "Hey, uh....?"

"Tyr," the man, Tyr, replied politely, smiling over at him as he adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, and the sun whited out the lenses again.

"Right, uh, can you go faster? It's just...the sooner I can get to the next city the better, and...uh that truck back there is kinda..." Pickles trailed off, not sure where to go with that.

Tyr nodded, and glanced in the long mirror that hung between their seats from the ceiling (christ but humans love reflections; he guessed they were like dolphins that way). A huff of concerned noise escaped Tyr, and the man sped up, trying to lose sight of the truck between cars as they sped past more mile-markers. Signs for different exits kept popping up, but he ignored all of them, and only kept glancing back.

When a particularly nasty traffic jam reared its ugly head, Tyr managed to get into the carpool lane, leaving the semi high and dry behind them and all the way on the other side of the highway. Sure, Tyr's car still only crawled ahead at about 5 miles per hour when they _could_ move, but it promised to get them ahead faster than Murderface could go.

"So, you uh, have a place you can be at? For the night that is?" Tyr asked, looking over at Pickles, and turning the air on higher, subtly angling the air vents toward the other man's chest. It was warmish in here, growing hotter outside, and so Pickles didn't think much of it. Though, if anyone needed the air, it should be Tyr with his long-sleeved, high-necked shirt; not Pickles in his short sleeves and partially-damp hair.

"Uh, no not really," Pickles replied, shrugging his shoulders. "I was thinkin’ I'd just find...somewhere kinda uh...dry and warm to sleep? And then just get goin’ the next day or whatever."

"You mean, sleep on the street?" Tyr asked, sounding a bit alarmed and pitying. Pickles shrugged again, not really sure if that was a problem or not, giving Tyr's reaction. Did people not sleep on the streets or just wherever? The world was very big, and there were a lot of structures around to not just use one of them like his cave back home.

"Maybe I'll sleep in...uh, a place?"

"A shelter?"

"Sure, yeah one of those," Pickles nodded, again kind of surprised by the weirdly obvious names for places. Why would shelter be something specialized enough to need an "a" in front of it. Tyr, however, shook his head, looking concerned.

"You don't have to do that, Pickles," he replied, his face turned toward Pickles again so the glare of light hid his eyes from him again. "You could stay in a motel. I am travelling quite a bit yet from my conference and needed to stay in one anyhow."

"Okay," Pickles replied, not really knowing what to do with that information--or what a "motel" was. Tyr chuckled, which made Pickles frown, feeling like he might have been laughed at, which never sat well with him. He crossed his arms, unwittingly accentuating his biceps.

"No need to look so cross, my friend," Tyr replied, relaxing when Pickles lowered his arms again and exposed the evidence of the cold A/C working on his nipples. The little visible peaks added to the charm of the younger man's backwards shirt, and Tyr forced himself to turn his gaze back on to the road. "I was merely suggesting that you could stay with me in my motel room. No sense in sleeping in a shelter when we could simply share one together."

"Oh!" Pickles brightened, and relaxed against the seat again. "That makes sense, I guess. Don't know why I can't just sleep wherever, though."

"Well...they have laws against that kind of thing around here, I think," Tyr replied, sounding not overly sure, but continued with his convincing. "Authorities may tell you to move or put you in a cell if they find you sleeping on private property."

"What?! Like, if I'm on someone else's territory, they'll just lock me up somewhere?"

"That is a unique way of putting it," Tyr responded, that strange hint of a smile on his face again. "But yes."

"Well fuck that," Pickles groused, and fidgeted in the seat again. "Yeah, sure, we can get a motel room or whatever. I would, uh, really appreciate it, dood."

Tyr chuckled, and moved his hand from the stick shift to pat Pickles' thigh, giving the knobby joint of his leg a friendly squeeze before quickly returning to the stickshift. Pickles felt a strange swooping sensation in response to that, and even more uncomfortable.

Could it be...was this human attracted to him? Fuck, but things were so difficult to figure out up here on land. There were some similar body-language and cues that his people had used for initiating a bit of sex, but without pheromones and the surety of the human's customs, Pickles had no fucking idea. After all, it had seemed Murderface gave off a few of those cues before, but he ended up freaking out on Pickles and kicking him to the curb barely an hour later.

Maybe humans just _did_ this kind of thing with each other?

"There's a motel at the city I'm heading for," Tyr brought up, his voice sounding a bit tight and uncomfortable, and Pickles noticed how he gripped at the shifting-stick again. "You didn't mention where you were going though. Only that you said 'the city'."

"Uh, well..." Pickles looked out the window, hating that this part of the conversation had come up again. "I'm looking for my brother. And I know he probably went to the biggest, closest city he could get from the beach back there. Somewhere he could make a lotta money, and see a lotta ladies, and be a general asshole."

"Sounds like Atlantic City," Tyr suggested, shooting a brief glance at Pickles, and smiling like he'd made some kind of joke again. However, Pickles only sat up straighter, green-eyes keen and focused on the other man.

"Atlantis City? That a place for assholes and money?"

"Well, yes, generally. It's _Atlantic_ though."

"The cold sea?"

"Well, yes it's named for that." Tyr frowned, looking a bit uneasy for a moment. "Have you not heard of it."

"Oh, uh...well yeah, I just...haven't been. And must've heard the name wrong before. Heh." Pickles offered as an excuse, and relaxed when Tyr nodded, seeming to understand, being also a man of foreign origins.

"Yes, well it is up along the East Coast, and a bit out of the way. I'm afraid I'm not heading there myself," Tyr pointed out, and Pickles nodded, trying not to look crestfallen about losing this easy means of travel. The other man’s hand rested over Pickles’ thigh again, quite a bit higher than the knee this time, and pet reassuringly over it. Pickles stared at the hand, watching as he inched a bit higher, and felt that strange swoop in his bile sac again.   
  
“But I can take you as far as Atlanta, though,” Tyr offered, and they snailed along in traffic. “It’ll be a long drive still to there. We can...maybe keep ourselves entertained until then though? Get to become friendlier with each other?”   
  
“I...uh, what do you mean friendlier?” Pickles asked, swallowing with an audible click in his throat, and tensed further when Tyr’s hand suddenly rested over his groin. The man squeezed lightly at him, his thumb brushing firmly and pointedly where the outline of Pickles’ dick could be found. “Uh th-that--”   
  
“I’m very generous, Pickles,” Tyr told him with a bit of a shaking in his voice, and pulled at the zipper, separating the teeth of his fly with a slow deliberation. “I would get you off first, of course, with my hand...and then maybe you could put your mouth on me? No one else would even see you, if just laid your head in my lap…”

“I..uh, what you want me to suck you off?” Pickles had done that...well, yeah he don’t that a lot. At least with people whose dicks could _fit_ in his mouth. And generally he did that with people he liked or was at least fucking attracted to! His days of sucking dick for favors weren’t completely behind him, but Pickles had to be the one to fucking offer that. Having some fucking creepy, sweaty human propose that Pickles just get to sucking his dick with an unwanted handjob as a bonus flipped his anger switch.   
  
“Get.” Pickles ground out, his hand gripping tightly at Tyr’s wrist with a strength the human clearly hadn’t expected, and he met the nervous gaze with his own furious one. “ **The fuck**. Off of me.”   
  
“Hey, what’s the big deal? I thought--”   
  
“You thought wrong, fuckface,” Pickles ground out, and then snapped the man’s hand back before he thought the action through. There was a dull crack of bones, a thick beat of silence, and then Tyr’s anguished howling as he yanked his injured hand back. The man bellowed in some foreign tongue, cradling his hand to his chest, and swearing (that much was apparent) at Pickles with real anger in his eyes.   
  
Terrified and regretting pissing off some strange human who could do who knows what to him, Pickles, struggled with the passenger door, pressing at all sorts of buttons until it finally yielded. Tyr kept screaming at him, and the car lurched forward suddenly as Pickles staggered out of the door.

There wasn’t much place for Tyr to go, due to the congestion of other cars and trucks around them, so Pickles hurriedly ran away from the car. Other cars honked their horns, people gaping at him and sticking their heads out the window to try and see what the fuck was going on, but Pickles ignored them.  
  
Again, he was lost in the sea of humanity, picking his away across the hot road, and painfully reminded that he had nothing protecting his feet from the hot pavement and debris of the highway. He stumbled quickly along the road, snarling and glaring at the human faces gawking from their windows, and jumping at the sounds of horns. Fuck he hated these creatures, hated everything about them, and all the smog and heat they put off.

“HEY!” Another voice joined the noises, and Pickles whipped his head toward it, ready to break another fucking wrist if he needed to. He stood there, and blinked in surprise to see Murderface hanging out the window of his truck, waving his hat. “Hey, numbnuts!”


	7. Some Creedence

“What the  **fuck** do you want!?” Pickles shouted back, tense and tired, but already kind of feeling better to see a familiar face. Even if he hated it.    
  
“Look, get in the truck, alright?” Murderface shouted back, and leaned over to push open the passenger door. “Before a state trooper sees us, okay?”   
  
“Why? So you can scream in my face again, or grab my dick like a fuckin’ crazy person?”   
  
“Dude, what the fuck?” Murderface’s expression darkened. “No, I don’t want your fuckin’ dick. Get in the goddamn truck already before I leave you here.”   
  
Pickles stared at him for a few more moments then climbed up into the cab, wincing as his sore feet scraped the textured steps, and slammed the door closed behind him. There was silence in the cab before Murderface turned up the radio. The same mixtape from before played, and the booming bass and heavy strings settled something dark and restless in Pickles’ chest.

“...Is that what the creepy fucker did? The pedo-looking douche in the Town Car?”

“What’s a Town Car?”

“Yeah, okay, right, forgot about your mermaid schtick,” Murderface rolled his eyes, and pulled off on the nearest exit, cutting off some slower cars. “You know who I mean. The only other douchebag you’ve gotten a ride from today.”

“Yeah, I know who you mean,” Pickles grit out, but didn’t elucidate further. He kept his arms crossed, and tucked up his feet onto the seat too, picking out gravel and little bits of rubber from the soles. His zipper stayed open like some gorey eye-socket.

“Okay, fine, that’s answer enough. Also, your fly’s undone, genius.”

“Huh?”   
  
“The...the zipper,” Murderface clarified, and gestured vaguely at his own crotch before gripping tightly at the steering wheel. “Your-- fuck, your pants are fuckin’ open, dumbass.”

Pickles looked down, and his face turned a very obvious shade of red. He quickly adjusted himself so he could zip the pants closed again, and squeezed his legs shut.    
  
“Thanks. I guess.”

“You’re welcome,  _ Ariel _ ,” Murderface drawled mockingly, but eased up a bit, eyes focused on the road ahead as they only just made it through an underpass. There was a slight scraping sound of metal on concrete that made Pickles wince and twitch, but Murderface just turned up the volume more. The sound of heavy guitars and some guy claiming to be "The Hammer" or whatever settled them both.

"It's Pickles, but I'm guessing you're makin' a real witty joke," Pickles surmised, unamused, and settled his feet slowly back on the floor of the cab. They were right back to tapping like they had a couple hours earlier, as if nothing weird had happened between that time and now. 

Murderface looked over at him, not seeing any other signs that the creeper dude had done anything to Pickles, like bruises or ripped clothing. If anything, Pickles just looked annoyed--maybe a little spooked. Taking that as a cue, Murderface decided to drop it for now, and felt the struggle for words again. He'd been trying to think of a way to apologize, because clearly this guy had something not-quite-right with him, but he'd been decent to Murderface and broke up the monotony of the trip.

"Look, uh," Murderface started, gripping at the wheel and shifting awkwardly in his seat, and he jerked his head back toward his bass laying on the cot in the back. "I'm...it wasn't right to, uh, just kick you out like that."

"It's your home," Pickles said, voice flat, and gave an apathetic shrug as he stared forward. "You gotta right to kick people outta it."

"What? No, look, this shit-heap ain't my home," Murderface bristled, waving a hand around the cab, insulted. "I wouldn't  _ live  _ in a fuckin' semi. It ain't even got a shitter like a classy RV's got. This is just like...my job. And it's cheaper to take a nap in the back than to set up in a fuckin' motel."

"That guy wanted to take me to one of those," Pickles added, a bit more involved now that Murderface had mentioned something he could talk about. "Said it was a place to sleep without being on the streets, 'cos I'd get in trouble or whatever."

"He did? Fuckin' perv," Murderface growled, unsurprised that some weirdo who picked ~~pretty~~ guys like Pickles up at rest stops would wanna do  _ that _ . Nevermind the fact that he himself had picked up Pickles twice now on the side of the road. It's just different for truckers--and he was different than other truckers. And he wasn't fuckin'  **gay** . 

"Is it true though? You can't just sleep wherever out here?" 

"Huh? Well, I guess. Different rules in different places. Sometimes cops don't give a fuck if you're sleepin' in a dumpster, other times they get pissy and wanna make some money writin' people up and lockin' them up for just tryin' to get a fuckin' night's sleep. Waste of taxpayers' money, in my opinion."

"Uh..." Pickles stared at him, blinking slowly and looking stoned. "Yeah, I didn't really get any of that. I'm just gonna go with 'yes it is true.'"

"Yes, it is true," Murderface repeated, mimicking and rolling his eyes, and then reached down to pick up the bag of chips he'd gotten from the snack machine before. "Here, you're probably hungry. Sorry it isn't kelp or sushi or whatever the fuck you supposedly eat."

"I'm not on a fuckin' diet," Pickles huffed, taking the crinkly bag that smelled of salt and something...greasy? He wasn't sure, but it kind of reminded him of oil slicks and he'd some of these kind of bags floating with the flotsam. "I don't eat kelp unless I'm at my mom's."

Murderface snorted. Even if this guy was crazier than a shithouse rat, he was consistent with his delusion, and entertaining as hell. He glanced over watching as he tried one chip, made a face, and then started to stuff his face with them. 

"Shit, bro, don't choke."

"Mmmff! It'sh fuckin' good!" Pickles replied, spraying a bit of chips as he spoke, the slurred speech making Murderface wonder for a split second if Pickles was making fun of him. He ignored it, though, because the guy hadn't done that yet--a generally good indicator that it wouldn't happen. 

"Yeah, they're barbecue. The good brand too." Murderface had already eaten the mixed nuts, figuring that if Pickles didn't get killed and ended up accepting his (sort of) apology, he'd be safer eating the chips. Nut allergies were deadly, he'd read somewhere, and he would have felt weird offering his nuts to some guy--he'd fallen into that obvious joke before.

"So where is your home?" Pickles asked, licking the ends of his fingers noisily, and watching with curious amusement as a flush spread up Murderface's thick neck to his partially hidden ears. "If this isn't where you live."

"Uh, well...originally Alabama," Murderface scratched at the back of his neck, waiting for the usual commentary on his roots. But nothing was said about rednecks or cousin-fucking or assumed racism, so he relaxed. Maybe this Pickles guy really _didn't_ know shit about this country. Tragic.

"Is that...nearby?" Pickles prompted, not really knowing what the hell Alabama was. "Or...uh...Special?"

"Not really," Murderface answered both questions at once. "My grandparents live in Newark now. We moved there when I was fifteen after my high school burned down." He neglected to mention that he had burned it down, since so far only Magnus had found that information hilarious rather than upsetting or concerning. "Which sucked. But that's where I met my best friend, Magnus."

"Uh-huh," Pickles answered, looking vaguely interested at the mention of something burning. He'd heard of that before, but had yet to see fire. He wondered if it was anything like the magic kind he'd seen conjured back home in his youth. Playing with magic couldn't be that different from the dangerous shit human kids got up to. 

"Yeah, he’s the same guy I made this tape with,” Murderface went on, and tapped at the cassette player, the little plastic flap of its mouth pulled back to show the white edge of the tape inside. “I’m playin’ the bass, he does guitar and vocals--for now. Though we’re kinda lookin’ for more people, especially since the drum machine we used is kinda shitty.”   
  
Pickles nodded, head cocked to the side in interest, curious about how they had made this music together. Maybe, if there was time, he could get a demonstration of it in person. The way Murderface talked about all of it kind of reminded Pickles of his days running around with his group, Eels N’ Corals. Of course, mostly, they just got high and marked a bunch of random spots as part of their territory. Though, sometimes Pickles would sing or Sammy would pound his fists against the hulls of old ships to a made-up beat. Pickles loved those times the best, and kept finding his head turning, eyes drawn to Murderface’s bass in the back. 

“So, do  _ you  _ actually have a home or are you stickin’ with that mermaid thing?” 

“Cecaelia,” Pickles corrected, sounding tired and exasperated. “We’re called cecaelia.”

“Right, sure,” Murderface rolled his eyes again; at this rate, they were gonna fall right out of his head. “I’ll give you this: the fancy name does add some credence to it. Oh! That’s a good idea.”

He popped the tape out, since it needed to be flipped over anyhow, and plucked up another from the mess of cassettes hanging out in a cardboard box set just in front of the stick shift. Pickles hadn’t noticed them before, too interested in the bass when he’d been left alone, but there seemed to be about twenty of the plastic squares. All of them ranged from black to white mostly, though there were a few differently colored ones, and some had thin, brown strands of ribbon dangling from the top of them.    
  
Murderface steered the big wheel with his knees for a moment, and stuck the tip of his pinky finger into one of the cog-like holes of the tape. He moved the cassette around his finger, and the little bit of ribbon that dangled from the top wound back into the cassette like rope around a pulley. 

Pickles’ pierced brows rose, impressed for a moment as he wondered if this was what one  _ had _ to do every time or if Murderface had cleverly fixed something. His companion shrugged like it was no biggie, and plopped the tape into mouth of the player. A press of the button, a crackle of sound from the speakers in the doors, and a much slower, more melodic stringed instrument started to play. 

“Do you like CCR?” Murderface asked, turning the volume knob up again, as if it weren’t already loud, and handed one of the bottles of Mountain Dew over to Pickles.

“What’s that?” Pickles opened the top, unscrewing it after watching Murderface do the same, and took a sip of the hissing, bubbling brew. It felt like a kick in the teeth, and fizzed on his tongue, but he’d had worse and was thirsty enough to keep drinking.

“Creedence Clearwater Revival,” Murderface elucidated, sucking down his soda like nothing, and finally put his hands back on the wheel. He’d only drifted a little bit over the line, but it’s not like any of those assholes on the road ever called the number on the back of the truck  and complain about his driving. Besides, Pickles didn’t seem to care that much, and if the passenger wasn’t grabbing to the handles in fear, he figured he was doing okay.

“Never heard of them,” Pickles replied with a shrug, but bobbed his head and tapped his feet along to the drums all the same. “Is this them? They’re not bad.”   
  
“They’re pretty fuckin’ sweet, even if they ain’t as heavy as I’d like,” Murderface agreed, getting a little excitable now that he could talk more about music and not argue about whether or not  _ The Little Mermaid  _ was a biography. “I grew up on them at home, and they were the only thing besides Johnny Cash that I could stand to listen too.” 

The two of them rode in almost companionable quiet, just listening to the tape and tapping along on the floor or the steering wheel. After the A-Side of the tape finished, Murderface ejected it and flipped it around. Pickles took the pause to speak up again.

“I think I know where my brother is,” he provided, a bit cryptically. “Do you know..uh, The Atlantic City?”

“Atlantic City? Sure, my grandma took me there a couple times with her,” Murderface shuddered at the memories. “It’s a fuckin’ shithole version of Las Vegas, but people on the east coast ain’t about to travel 2,000+ miles to go gamble, so that place does the trick. Got a shit ton of old people to scam.”

“Then Seth is  _ definitely _ there,” Pickles said, his tone dark and full of intent. “And I need to go there, find him, and kick his fuckin’ ass.”

“Yeah?” Murderface could definitely get down with watching this crazy little fucker kick somebody’s ass. Hell, if this Seth guy  _ did _ just abandon his delusional brother on a Florida beach to go gamble, he deserved the beatdown of the century. 

Maybe Murderface could help.

“My route finishes in Trenton, y’know. I could give ya a lift there.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and crits are always welcome.
> 
> Below is a link to some great art a friend and fantastic artist for the Metalocalypse fandom did for this!
> 
> http://toki-draws.tumblr.com/post/143665666657/williammurderfacemurderface-my-body-is-readu
> 
> Toki-draws is too wonderful for words!


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